


The Harbor Becomes The Sea

by MooseFeels



Series: Revelation [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Castiel, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Dean, Pacific Northwest, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Recovery, Therapy, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's lived in Castiel's pack for four years, and maybe he doesn't belong here, but he does have a kind of place here. And he's comfortable and mostly content and his life is quiet.<br/>But Castiel comes back and brings someone with him, and things change, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The apartment is even smaller than Gabriel’s, but it’s just the right size for Dean. It’s on the other side of town, closer to the sea and further from the town square. If he walks about twenty minutes out, he’ll hit the beach, which he loves.

Turns out, the people in the city will pay two hundred dollars for a pair of little monkey’s fists that Dean’s tied, especially if he uses a bright color. And if he calls himself a “textile artist,” he can sell them for two hundred and fifty dollars and sell them in Seattle and Portland. They don’t use his name or his picture, but Gabriel did write something about being a “disadvantaged omega escaping an abusive pack.” And it’s not that he even needs the money, what with what turned out to be seventy thousand dollars of dowry money in the bank. But Dean likes make it on his own- his own money, that is. And he likes making the knots. And hell, if the city people can afford to spend two hundred and fifty dollars on six inches of silk twine, Dean’s not going to stop them.

So he has an apartment all to himself, with a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom. It’s right above a studio where he keeps his cord and thread and rope; the needles and forms. He’s working on a bunch of loops around floats for the crab traps- those the tourists will buy up in the summer when they come for crabbing. He still makes the little ones to mark trails. Every few weeks, he shows scouts and classes from the school how to tie them. He’s even got a spinning wheel now, to make his own woolen yarn. He doesn’t like to knit with it, but he knows a few people in town who do. He’s gotten a few nice, sturdy sweaters out of it.

It’s not going into the city or anything, but it’s nice. It’s his own. He wakes up in the morning on his own. He cooks his own meals. He hikes, a lot. Sees Missouri once a week and sometimes goes to the diner to help Gabriel cook.

He’s been here four years now, and he’s still an outsider, but the pack does seem to understand him. To respect him.

Dean gets up at six thirty. He stretches, wide and easily. He gets dressed and heads down the backstairs, outside. He’s slips into his shoes, kept on the brick shelves outside, and takes a walk.

It’s spring now. The air is cool and clear and the flowers are beginning to pop up in the woods. On the beach, though, the change is the most noticeable in the sky. The clouds have grown more sparse and the sky itself less grey. It’s a little brighter, every day. It’s good.

Here looks very different than Montana, and the seasons happen differently, too. It is good to see the winter ease away so early, in March, than in April. And the sea- Dean loves the sea.

He’s wearing a wool cardigan Ellen’s daughter Jo made for him, and the wind barely touches it. He sits on a piece of driftwood and he watches the sea, the way the waves lap up against the shore and drag the sand away, little by little.

When he feels...wrong, it helps to think about the sea, and how one day, it’s efforts will drag away the land. Will drag it all the way, to Montana.

Dean thinks a lot about Montana.

But for now, he sits beside the sea and watches the water.

He’s not sure how long he’s there, but when he hears voices, he gets up from the driftwood and wanders back toward the apartment. It’s owned by the pack, and the money goes into the schools, which is just a complicated way of saying that Castiel is his landlord.

He unlocks the door to his studio and steps inside. Kicks off his shoes and flicks on the lights that brighten the sunlit space just a little more. The wide windows look out toward the sea, and it’s not uncommon that people on the beach will stop to watch him work.

Dean thinks of the sea as he pulls a spool of grey-blue twine down from the shelf and sits down at the workbench. He brings the magnifier down and starts to tie.

Sometimes he turns on music- he did a whole series a few months back, each color of knot named for a song on the album he listened to and they sold breathlessly fast- but today he works in silence.

He thinks of Castiel’s eyes. The thought is fleeting, but after it dashes across his brain, he can’t shake it. He can’t get rid of it.

He hasn’t seen Castiel in nearly eight months.

No one has, actually. He announced at a town meeting that he had some business to settle, out in the city, and he might be gone for a while. And then he’d packed up and he’d left.

Dean can tell his heat is coming soon, and it makes the thoughts of him worse. To want something so much, someone so much-

He stands up. He’s tied eight sets and he’s been at it for about an hour. But the space is suddenly too small and he feels a kind of tight, straight rage inside of himself at it.

This is something he’s been talking to Missouri about; about how sometimes he gets so angry, so blindingly, overwhelmingly angry. It’s not right. It’s not- it’s not the normal kind of anger. It’s something hot and foreign inside of him. It feels like a cancer.

He steps outside- doesn’t even bother with his shoes. He just needs to the cold, clear air for a moment. For a long while. He breathes, long and easily.

“Dean!” He hears, and he turns. It’s Gabriel, hanging out of the window of his car. “Dean, come quick!”

He looks at him, quizzical.

“Get your shoes,” he says. “Castiel’s back and- and you need to come.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel leans against his truck behind the apartment building.

When he left, it was ending breath of summer- the days were still warm and the trees and plants were all still alive. Fall would be coming in a little under a month . Now, though, fall and winter have both passed and Spring is here. The daffodils the high school plants around town have all sprouted up. Benny has surely been busy in the woods, checking in on the deer and the fish and the birds.

When he left, Dean’s heat had just finished, and Castiel knew that if he waited one more day, he would not go. He would wait one more year, and the thought of holding out, of putting this off more, it hurt. Made him feel like a real son of a bitch, every year that went by and he didn’t do it.

He had to know. Had to find out. And he knew it would take some time. The drive to Montana, that’s two days on its own, and covering the whole state- thoroughly, that’s weeks, too.

But there’s more to do.

Gabriel’s car peels into the alley, tires squealing against the asphalt. He cuts the engine, and he and Dean step out.

Dean.

Now, Dean is twenty. It has only been eight months since Castiel has seen him, but he seems to have grown even more. To have changed even more. His shoulders are bulkier, a little more muscle than there was before. His skin seems even more freckly. He’s wearing a sweater in a heathered wool and he’s got on a worn pair of flip flops. Dean is always changing, always growing, and seeing him is so beautiful. He blossoms. It is so good to see him, in the spring. It is so good to see him.

His scar is still there- of course it’s still there. It’s not just something that would disappear. But the bandage is gone, and that’s new.

Castiel’s seen it a few times, but never when he’s just...just being. The scar is startling, a faded pink color. It’s not raised any more, but the color is still there. The shape- the scar, is still there.

Castiel can’t help but feel like this is a mistake, that he should have talked to him first, gotten more information, even brought him, but the thought stops as soon as Sam steps out of the car.

Dean’s eyes grow huge, and he backs up a couple of steps.

His lips part and his brows furrow in this incredulous gesture. Shocked.

Sam is tall. Really tall. And he’s slight of frame, but he moves like he’s going to fill out one day in the future. His hair is longer than Dean’s; it hang in his eyes. He looks far more like a boy than Dean does. Castiel remembers when Dean looked young but he’s never thought of him as looking like a boy.

“Hey, Dean,” he says, his voice vulnerable and a little scared. His head is crooked downward, in a submissive gesture.

Sam’s skin is unblemished, clean, and unscarred.

Dean puts his hands behind his head and he turns around in one quick movement. He squats down for a moment, and when he stands he’s hunched over his knees. He retches, and a thin line of bile pours from his mouth.

Castiel looks at Gabriel, and Gabriel shakes his head.

Castiel jerks his head toward the building- toward the door- and Sam nods and walks carefully away from the truck and into the building with Castiel.

Sam looks like a kicked puppy. “God,” he says, “I’m sorry, I should have called or something or-”

“It’s my fault,” Castiel says. “You...you haven’t...I warned you, but I should have known. It’s not your fault.”

Sam nods a few times.

The door opens.

Dean’s standing there, looking at the two of them in the stairwell, his eyes huge and bright and teary.

“Sammy,” he croaks.

Sam looks like a weight has been taken from him, and they dive forward and hug each other, tight and close. Like the other is something that might slip away at any moment- like the other is completely ephemeral, like a ghost.

“I didn’t know,” Sam says. “I got your letter but they wouldn’t say anything; they didn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t even say your name. They wouldn’t even- they wouldn’t even say your _name_.”

Sam’s crying. Dean’s hand is fisting in his shirt, clutching him. Close.

“You’re real,” Sam says, his voice shaking in his throat. “You’re real.”

Dean hasn’t said anything, but his body is tensed and tight. Like he can’t stand the thought of letting go.

“I thought you were gone,” Sam murmurs.

Through the open door, Castiel can see Gabriel standing outside.

He grins and gives Castiel a thumbs up.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Sam got tall.

It's the first thought Dean has when he sees him, stepping out of Castiel's truck. He practically unfolds out of it, his long legs extending through space to stand him up. He's a few inches taller than Dean is, and Dean is already taller than Castiel.

But Dean knows, as soon as he sees his brother, that he's not an omega. It's not just the fact that his skin isn't branded- isn't _marked_ like Dean's is. Sam's an alpha- Sam's alpha- thank _God_ , thank the cruel, twisted God that made both of them and made this cruel earth that Dean's brother, Dean's little brother, isn't _cursed_ like Dean is.

Dean feels the brand on his face like it's new; like it is the night it was laid into his flesh by the hot iron.

He sees his brother, who smiles just barely and says softly, "Hey, Dean."

He feels that nausea, that pain, rise in him and he turns around. He vomits, leaving his throat burning.

It's Sam, and he's unmarked and Dean- Dean is the ruination who was swept away from the pack.

He stays turned away and he tries to breathe. He tries to stay calm.

He hears a sound, a thumping on the car, and he turns. Looks at Gabriel, standing there.

"He wouldn't have come if he didn't want to see you, no matter what," he says.

Dean wipes his face on the edge of his sleeve.

"Dean," Gabriel says, "I can take you back to your place or-"

Dean turns, and sees the back of the building, where Sam and Castiel have probably headed in.

And Dean opens the door, and his brother is still there.

His unmarked brother.

He holds on the same way he used to. It doesn't matter that his arms go over Dean's shoulders now, because he clings like he did when he was little and he skinned his knees or had a bad dream or the preacher put in him that raw, sharp fear of going to Hell.

It's Sam.

"I didn't know. I got your letter but they wouldn't say _anything._ They didn't tell me anything; they wouldn't even say your _name. They wouldn't even say your name,_ " he says. He sounds like he's putting down a stone, huge and heavy on him. He sounds as relieved to see Dean as Dean is to see him.

He whispers, so softly it's like he doesn't even realize he's saying it, "I thought you had died. I thought they had _killed_ you. I had dreams."

Dean holds his brother so tight his arms hurt. He's sure Sam's ribs must ache from this, but he's not pulling away either.

"You're real," Sam says. "You're...real. I thought you were gone."

Dean hears that shuddering inhale. Sam's crying. For real crying.

"You're real," he repeats, like he's telling himself more than he's telling Dean.

Dean holds him for a long, long moment. A long forever, between the two of them.

"What...what happened?" Sam asks, softly.

Dean flinches, and he breathes. He swallows the panic and pulls away from his brother, feels his hand drift instinctively over the mark.

He takes a long, deep breath.

"I didn't...I didn't present," he answers.

Sam looks like he doesn't understand for a moment, and then his face twists. Like a storm cloud, the anger settles over him.

He shakes his head. He shakes his head, and Dean feels that terrible, awful pain inside of himself. God, please. Not Sam. Not Sam _too_. His father, his pack, his mother but please. Please, God, do not take Sam from him, too.

Dean feels his fingers scrape against the scar, try to worm their way in, tear out that wrongness in him. In his flesh.

"I left," Sam says. "I left the pack."

Dean looks at his brother, at the storm at the surface of him.

"Mom died," he says. "After-after they _took_ you. She got sick, real bad, to the bones. And Dad and the pack and I just- I realized that I didn't believe that Hell could be worse than living that way.

"How?" Dean asks.

Sam's only sixteen and he cannot be sold as Dean was, to another pack.

"Alpha emancipation laws," he says. He blushes a little. "Old laws, same one that let them- it means presented alphas can split off before eighteen, start new packs."

"You left," Dean whispers, bewildered. Amazed. "You _left_."

He steps forward and holds his brother again.

"Mom," he whispers.

"You're _real,"_ Sam repeats, as if he still cannot believe it.

They stand, in the stairwell.

Found.

 


	4. Chapter 4

"I need to go to bed," Castiel says, upstairs.

The couch is comfortable, comfortable in that his legs can stretch out in front of him and his feet can rest on the floor instead of held tense at the ankle. It was a long drive up from California, and neither Castiel nor Sam wanted to stop.

Sam didn't believe that Dean was alive until Castiel pulled a polaroid out of his pocket. And then he'd looked at Castiel with a raw kind of fear. A terrible fear.

  
_What did he want_ , he'd asked _. What are you going to do_?

They don't seem able to let go of each other. Dean from Sam and Sam from Dean. They came upstairs and they'd been apart for a moment but they're back to hugging- to clinging to each other. Every once in a while, one murmurs to the other and there's a short response. Nothing Castiel can hear, though.

Sam's a smart kid. He's at a high school down there, in the hope that it'll feed him into Stanford. That's about all Castiel managed to get out of the kid about himself. He'd mostly asked about Dean.

_Does he still go to church? Is he eating? Is he happy?_

Gabriel's at the stove. Anna's still at work, but she's been paged. She's busy, and Castiel already feels like he's invading. This is something important. Something sacred, and he's an interloper.

After a long time, Sam pulls away and he says, "Where will I be staying? I know that this is your pack and I'm a- a rogue alpha but I'm not a threat to you or your structure. But I can-"  
"He'll stay with me," Dean says. His voice is still rough and low from seldom use. "In the studio, he'll stay there."

Castiel feels a weird stab of envy at that.

  
_They're brothers_. Nothing's going to happen. But Dean is still...Dean is still...

They don't talk about what they are. Or at least, before Castiel left they didn't. Castiel would come to the studio sometimes, help Dean with the knots or the rope. They'd walk on the beach or through the woods. Sometimes Dean would walk to Castiel's cabin, come inside without knocking. They'd make dinner. And sometimes Dean would talk. Sometimes in his studio, he'd even sing.

Dean likes classic rock and some of the British pop that's coming out. He doesn't like grunge though, or anything from the punk scene after 1989. And Dean likes seaglass and rocks with holes through them. He likes silk and wool. He likes tying big, big knots and little ones- he even made a fist out of one of Anna's hairs once. He likes red meat and pie.

There's something between them. A promise.

Dean spends his heats at Castiel's cabin, Castiel running the suppressant line himself. Those days, with Dean in his bed, even laid up, Castiel feels more right than he has since before the trouble.

He lost count of days, but he's almost seven years clean now. And god, he still misses it. But with Dean around, he doesn't even think about it anymore.

Castiel loves him, and that terrifies him. Something about it doesn't sit right with him. It makes him think about all the things he's broken. All of the things he's _ruined_.

He can't help that raw, electric feeling that he's going to break Dean, too.

"Sam, you're free to come and go as you please," he says. "And if Dean wants you in his studio, that's where you'll be."

Sam smiles a little.

Castiel remembers Montana. He remembers the building in the snow, the small church with white walls and no insulation, frigid cold in the fall. The wooden sign faded, its text reading, _Church of Christ_. That Greek letter, the one opposite of Dean's mark.

Sam's got scars like Dean's got scars, his just aren't on his face.

Watching Dean with Sam, it's not hard to see why the pack didn't peg him as an omega early on. He's protective. He stands like he physically can't forget that his brother was shorter than him once. He looks at him in an assessing, concerned way.

Now that he's an omega, though, people won't call this protective. They'll call it _nurturing._  


Castiel yawns, hugely. "I'm going to go home," he says. "I'm about to pass out on your couch and I'm not interested in waking up with a permanent marker moustache."

He gets up from the couch and heads to the door when he feels a hand on his arm.

He turns around, and Dean has stopped him.

He smiles. He leans forward and kisses Castiel softly on the cheek.

Castiel feels lighter as he goes downstairs, practically skips into his car, and whistles the whole drive home.

 


	5. Chapter 5

It's after lunch and Gabriel has gone back down to the diner to work. It's a weird time of day- about four thirty. Not quite evening and not really afternoon anymore. The sun is beginning to settle down into the sky, darkness coming soon. Anna's not back yet. It's just Dean and Sam in the apartment where Dean lived for over a year.

"Gabriel seems like good people," Sam says.

Dean nods. He doesn't quite have his voice right now, but he can in a little bit. Sam seems to get that- it happened every once in a while when Dean was younger. It's good that Sam remembered.

It feels so good to know that Sam remembered at _all_.

Neither of them say anything for a long while, before Sam says, "It killed Mom, what they did."

Dean feels a stab of guilt at that. He pulls out his notebook, from a pocket in the cardigan and flips a few pages. He writes _I'm sorry_.

Sam looks at it for a long time before he says, "It wasn't you. I don't think- Dad tried to burn your pictures and he took everything out of your room. It was like we were just supposed to forget you had ever been here, that you had ever been real. And Mom wouldn't do it. She asked, every day, where you were. And she talked to me about you. Or, she tried to. _We_ tried. To remember you. We tried. This isn't you. This isn't your fault." Sam looks at him, his eyes intense and dark. "The pack...they were poison. And they killed Mom. Not you."

Sam looks like he broke something. His eyes are wide and watering.

"Dean, this isn't your fault. And god...I'm so glad you're-" His voice cracks. He leans forward and hugs Dean again. Holds him. Clings to him.

"The pack," Sam says. "The pack."

Dean understands him. Dean feels him.

God, it's his baby brother.

Sam cries ugly, like he has since he was a baby.

Dean still can't quite believe he's got his brother back. He'd resigned himself to never seeing him again- to being the last of his own family. And it's Sam. Too tall and too old and his hair too long, but it's _Sam_.

He pulls away after a while, and he says, "Castiel, the alpha, he seems...he seems good."

Dean nods again. Solemnly.

"I thought he wouldn't let me see you," he says. "Just pictures. I thought he would _keep_ you."

Dean pulls away. He licks his lips and he says, softly, "He doesn't have to keep me."

Sam bites the bottom of his own lip. He doesn't quite frown, but his brow does furrow. "I know," he says. "He's not like...or Dad." Sam pauses a moment, heavily, before saying, "I'm not sure I want to have my own pack."

Dean sits there, the admission _enormous_ between them.

"I'm not sure I ever believed," he says.

Dean holds his brother again, tight and close. The two of them, exiles. The two of them, hellbound.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Benny kept his house together while he was gone- made sure the windows didn’t get broken and the woodpile stayed stacked. It was a good thing of him, but Benny’s like that. Still, when Castiel gets to the cabin, he strips the sheets covering the furniture and flushes the toilet and runs the faucet for a little bit. He flicks the breakers on and lays a fire in the stove. He changes the sheet on his bed, pulling up an enormous cloud of dust up in the process. Pulls his duffel bag out of his car and tosses the dirty laundry into the basket to take to Gabriel’s and Anna’s later in the week.

He steps into the shower, and mother of God, the warm water feels so right and so clean and so good. He feels the layers of the road falling off of him. It feels like his first shower after rehab. It makes him feel like a real person. He feels California and Oregon and Eastern Washington and Montana fall off of him and slip down the drain. He feels his arms and legs relax, and his head clear. The fog surrounding him parts and he feels the kind of tired clarity that comes of being home for the first time in a long time.

He was only in rehab for two months, but he was on the road for eight, and as long as Castiel lives, he’s never going to Montana again.

He scratches his head, pulling the blood to his scalp and warmth there. He scrubs his face and shaves, pulling the scruff off of his cheeks and chin. He doesn’t go so close-clean shaven often, but when he does, it feels good.

He shuts off the tap and stands in the steam of the bathroom for a long moment, and then he pulls a towel off of the rack and rubs the water off of himself. Walks to his bedroom, hair still wet and sticking up in every conceivable direction, and he throws himself under his sheets and blankets. Buries his nose and face into his pillow.

He reaches into the nightstand and pulls out a knot. It’s tied in wool, fading from grey to dark navy and all the shades of blue-grey in between. At the center is a small cushion, and Castiel suspect that Dean slept with it during his heat. It smells so completely, comfortingly of Dean, and that scent, held against his nose, smells like home and comfort. It was Dean’s Christmas gift to him last year, and he didn’t take it with him on the road, even though he missed it-- he missed Dean-- like something had been cut from him and he was a man bleeding all through the night. On the road, though, he didn’t want to read as a mated alpha. Reading as an alpha, a pack alpha and not just some wandering sod with a knot, would make him a target. Not just in that place where Dean came from; in bars and on the road. Makes the pack look vulnerable and makes Castiel a rogue. A stray.

Benny had Castiel’s will too, when he was on the road.

He relaxes here. On the road, there are rules. Wash clothes religious. Use a neutral smelling soap. Use a masking deodorant and soap. Take the pill, if he needs to. Here, though, it’s easy. He can smell like himself and he can smell Dean.

The knot is loosely tied, and the cord was loosely woven. It squishes in his hand, a little larger than his fist. He smells the smell of Dean, the smell like petrichor and turned earth and deep, dark sugar. Molasses. It’s gorgeous, it’s home.

Castiel feels his eyes drift slowly closed.

He falls asleep thinking of Dean’s smile. Dean’s clever fingers and strong arms. Dean’s soft kiss.

Now Dean is twenty.

* * *

Dean settles himself deep under his sheets and looks out the window, toward the woods, away from the beach. The view is beautiful, but inky, cloudy night has rendered it completely black.

Downstairs, Sam is sleeping on the daybed in the studio, under blankets given to Dean by Gabriel.

Sam is asleep there. Sam is alive.

Alive and unscarred and healthy and smart and tall. Unhungry, and living in this land of abundance beyond the pack in Montana.  

Dean thinks of Cain and Abel, and Cain who was cursed. Cain sent East of Eden and into the Land of Nod. Dean thinks of Cain here in town, who runs the grocery store. Dean thinks distantly of Anthony Sandover, who went to college away from here two years ago.

Dean’s thoughts are disparate and hungry tonight, loud and without calm.

“I thought of you,” he whispers into the room, “I thought of you every day you were gone from me.”

He’s not sure if he’s talking about Castiel or his brother, but he knows it is true of both of them.

Out there, in the dark beyond his bedroom window, Castiel sleeps in his cabin. A place that is a home to him a little more than Anna and Gabriel’s apartment was. He thinks of the huge house in the woods he has seen, the one Benny told him belongs to the family that Castiel and Gabriel and Anna once were.

He wonders if that family could ever be again.

Now, Dean is twenty.

He feels inside of himself the strange yearning, aching, for fatherhood.

He wonders if that house could hold a new family.

He wonders if that family would have a place for him.

When he closes his eyes, he can hear the sound of the sea so close to him. He falls asleep slowly.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel wakes up about nine that morning. He gets up from his bed and he stretches, his elbows and knees and back popping. In a few years, he'll be thirty, but for now he is twenty seven and his joints yell but they don't _scream_ with agony.

He walks into his bathroom and washes his face and brushes his teeth. He puts on clean clothes and _vows_ to go to the laundromat at some time today and he goes to the woods.

He's got a lot of hiking to do today. It's been eight months since he's been in these woods, and he's not sure where the deer and birds and rabbits went, how they fared over the fall and the winter and into this spring. He's not sure how the growth has fared in the trees and grasses and moss. There's a lot to check, and while tonight he's got to go to a pack meeting, he wants to survey the woods, first.

The pack, the pack is made of people. And the people will do what they need to do, they'll take care of things as they see fit and they'll say it was Castiel's will and thought. They want a knot with a man attached to sign the paperwork and murmur the names at baptisms. But the woods, the woods need an eye to thin the trees and help the foaling deer and keep the blackberry thickets in control.

Castiel's okay with the ranger aspect of being an alpha.

With Dean's knots marking the woods, they've changed a little. There are parts of it that are a little more _public_ now, and there are parts of it that are completely private. The shape of the woods are respected by the pack, and Castiel thinks it's maybe the best sign that the pack has found a place for Dean in it. Maybe reluctantly and awkwardly, but there's a spot for him, and it's acknowledged.

Part of wandering through the woods right now is his job, and part of it is knowing that he will wander away from the little studio where Dean is living- a _textile_ studio, Castiel thinks with a little smile.

Dean needs space, needs time to see his brother, and Sam deserves to see Dean, too.

Besides, Castiel doesn't know how to talk to Dean. Doesn't know how to tell him _I thought of you for eight months, you are as beautiful as I left you, perhaps even more._  


Dean has another heat coming; if it didn't happen while Castiel was away, he's overdue.  

Castiel thinks about it, thinks about touching Dean. He thinks about touching him in his heat and out of his heat. He thinks of that raw _desire_ , that physical craving.

It has been so long. So very long.

He finds the rabbit warren easily, and he waits a long, long time to see them hop out and into the wood. He counts six, and a few fluffy, small kits follow after a while. He smiles at them. To be a new thing, a fresh thing, in the bright green day.

He marches on, into the wood a little deeper.

He thinks of fresh new things. He thinks of growth. He thinks of sex.

* * *

Sam watches Dean tie knots for a little while, and then he says, "I'm in school, in California."

Dean looks up from the knot, at his brother.

"I'm staying with a family, the Moore's. The government- the agency, placed me with them. I'm technically an emancipated alpha, but they placed me with a support system and having a high school degree will help me go to college."

Dean smiles a little, at his brother. "College?" Dean asks.

Sam nods a little, shyly. "I'm doing well," he says. "I'm in a remedial program, still, because...there are holes and stuff but I'm learning so _much_ and I've been going to extra classes on Saturdays to get caught up and learn more and stuff and I'm on track, I might even get into a good school, in California." It all comes from him at once, in the excited way Sam gets.

Dean smiles a little broader.

"So," Sam, continues, "I think I can be here for a week or so but I'm not...I'm not here forever. And I've got an address and _you've_ got an address and a phone and we can-"  
Dean feels a kind of stab at that, the kind of worry that if Sam isn't immediately in his sight, he'll be _gone_ , forever- but it goes almost as soon as it comes. Because Sam takes his hand, carefully, and he goes, "Dean, I'm here. We're here. Dean, I'm not going to disappear."

Dean looks at his brother for a long time, and he says, softly, "I want you to be happy, and I'm not- shit Sam, I'm not done being _not_ fucked up. And I'm not sure I'm ever going to be not fucked up. And just- god, you scared me." He shakes his head. "Sorry, Christ, you don't need this."

Sam smiles at him, the kind of smile that's not quite a smile. Not really. A kind of absent, sweet pain.

"I would ask you, if you wanted to come with me," Sam says, "but you-" He looks around the studio, "You've got a _life_ here. And...and you love him, don't you?"

Dean's voice leaves him for a moment, and he answers, softly, "Yes."

Because it's true, and where Castiel is, Dean will be, too.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean goes into town to buy groceries, and Sam comes with him.

It's not a long walk, at least not by Dean's standards, but Dean once walked twenty miles in the snow and he walks _everywhere_ now, so perhaps he is not the best judge of what a long walk is. Sam doesn't complain though, but he sure does _talk_ a lot.

"What kind of plant is this?" Sam asks, bending over and looking at a specific fern.

Dean shrugs. He doesn't know. The specific plants aren't important, it's the shape of the forest overall. The woods become the thing, the sum of their parts, and the ferns aren't important, it's what the ferns contribute to. It's what they become.

Sam looks at the fern for a moment and then catches up to Dean.

"It's beautiful here. Different beautiful. The light is different- in California it's really...really _yellow_. Here's it's blue green."

Dean lets his brother talk, happy to hear the background shape of it, but he doesn't feel like talking, and he doesn't have answers to the kinds of questions Sam is asking.

Dean's more of a big picture guy. Benny says it'll make him a good weaver, as soon as he gets the hang of the loom.

Sam says, "Do you think I could come here for holidays? I could try to cook-- maybe do pie?"

Dean looks at his brother and he says softly, "Gabriel makes a mean pie. Not as good as mom's, but...pretty good."

Sam smiles.

They walk on.

A car- a truck with a huge gun rack and bumper stickers- tears down the road, leaving their jackets fluttering in the air. Sam frowns at the vehicle, and Dean does, too.

"What the fuck?" Sam asks.

The truck stops, and reverses.

Dean reaches out, stops his brother from moving.

"Got a new knot, 'mega?" Someone _jeers_ from out the window.

Dean remembers, suddenly. Four years ago, in a high school he didn't even spend a whole day in .

  
_This_ asshole.

"You still overcompensating?" Dean sneers, his voice suddenly loud and hard.

  
_Authoritative_.

The key gets pulled out of the ignition. The door opens. Dean sees a tall metal can fall out of the cab.

Motherfucker got taller, but Dean did, too.

He looks at Sam. "You gonna do something about your wild bitch, alpha?" He asks.

Dean can hear the alcohol on his voice, the sway and stammer in his body.

"Why're you hear?" Dean says. "The money run out for fraternities in the city?"

  
_Anthony_. The name comes rearing back.

"Getting close to your heat?" He says. "I don't remember you being this _chatty_. Just wild. You need a _leash,_ you leaky cunt. And when I take this pack and get rid of that junkie _fuck_ , I'll _give you-"_  


Dean doesn't remember what happens next, he just remembers how his hand aches when he throws the punch. How it _keeps_ hurting as he keeps throwing punches. And Sam doesn't pull Dean away, and there's no one out here to put him into some sort of detention or principle's office.

Fucker catches his hand, mid-punch, and he catches Dean, _hard_ , in the gut. Dena feels his gorge rise, but he holds it down, and then Dean counters with a knee, into the asshole's ribs.

Guy makes the _woosh_ sound of breath being removed through pressure and not as god intended, and then he punches Dean again, _hard_ , in the face.

Dean can feel Sam entering in, pulling the guy away from him, and then he can hear sirens, from a sherrif's department patrol car.

* * *

"Castiel," Benny says, on the other end of the phone. "You're going to want to come down to the station."

Castiel frowns. "Benny, it's nine am on a Sunday and you know I sleep in. Unless you are bleeding or-"

"It's Dean," he says. "And Anthony Sandover."

Castiel hangs up and he climbs out of bed; he changes into a shirt and some jeans and he grabs the keys to the truck and speeds down, out there, to the station.


	9. Chapter 9

Castiel sees red. He literally, he literally sees red. His vision becomes full of the darkness, the ruby red color, of his own blood. He always thought it was just an expression, but the world loses color except for the vermillion of his own, furious gaze.

Pissed is something of an understatement, but it begins to get the point across.

He slams the door of his truck, stepping out of the cab and tearing into the low, squat building of the sheriff's office. He yanks the door open and Bobby’s already standing there, arms crossed over his chest.

“Benny’s in a room with Dean,” he says, “and his brother. They’re trying to calm him down, but Castiel, I tell you- I’ve never seen the boy like this.”

Castiel feels his stomach plummet. “Is he talking?” He asks.

Bobby frowns again, looks concerned. “Alpha, he won’t stop,” he answers.

Castiel doesn’t have to have Bobby guide him, and he doesn’t have to have him tell him what room he’s in, Castiel can hone in on his scent, easily, and then on the sound.

It’s not really screaming, but it is furiously loud. There’s a crashing sound, and there’s wailing, there’s shouting. Torrential.

Castiel catches an edge of a sentence, I’ll kill him! exclaimed.

Castiel turns.

Bobby has caught up to him.

“Sandover was driving, down the highway. Saw Dean and Sam walking into town, and pulled over. Now, according to Sandover, he offered them a ride. According to Sam, he threatened both of them, used some colorful words, and then threatened you, at which point, Dean...well, the boy lost his shit.” Bobby shifts his feet. “Blood alcohol...doesn’t pass muster for letting him drive.”

Facing the offices, on the other side of the hallway, are the cells.

Castiel looks at the cells for a long moment, and he steps inside. Bobby hands him the key.

He walks, all the way to the back. The echoing is really magnified back here, and he can’t help but wonder if Bobby put it like this on purpose. So that this asshole can hear everything.

He looks disheveled. And his hair’s a mess. And he’s got an incredible black eye, a lot like the one he got at the high school.

Castiel leans against the opposite cell, sits with his legs stretched out in front of himself. He looks at him for a long, long time, and he says, “I think you’re lucky that Bobby found you two.”

Sandover, Anthony Sandover, the third of his name and the name becomes worse, one after the other. He says nothing, but he does sneer.

“I have no doubt he would have killed you,” Castiel says, calmly. “I’ve met murderous people. I have nearly seen murders. I have no doubt that as long as you and Dean are in the same-”

“Fuck that slut,” Sandover spits. “You want some easy hole, get your knot wet, fucking do it you weak pussy fuck.”

“I release you from your pack alignment. You have twenty four hours to vacate pack grounds; if you remain here, I will report you as a rogue alpha and a threat to the community, and you will be tried outside of pack courts. This is no longer your permanent address, and if you are found back here, for any reasons, I will revoke the membership of your father as well,” Castiel says.

“I’ll take your blood,” Sandover shouts, “I’ll have it my teeth! And I’ll take him and I’ll-”

Castiel jumps forward. He is not taller than this boy, but he does not need to be.

“I would remember if I were you that I am the Alpha, undisputed, rightful of this pack!” he shouts at him. “And that your release is merciful! That if I were a killing man,  I would have your blood by old laws for threatening the omega of the pack! And it would do you well- It would save your life- to remember that!” Castiel’s voice echoes in the space. Not speaking. Roaring.

He unlocks the door.

Sandover does not move.

“You will be gone in twenty four hours, or I will have you in prison,” Castiel says.

He walks away, back in front of the office, where Dean continues to scream.

He opens the door, and a mug crashes into the wall, just as he enters.

The table is overturned, the chairs are too.

Dean is standing, fists raised. Benny is holding one arm back, and Sam is trying to keep him from pulling forward.

Dean’s eye is black- dark purple- and his expression is stormy and dark.

He does not look like Dean, he looks like a demon, and Castiel feels a kind of fear at that for a moment.

“Dean?” He says, trying to keep his voice calm and steady.

Dean lets his fists fall as he turns to see Castiel. He looks like his strings have been cut, like all of the rage has boiled out of him.

“I thought you- I thought you had- I thought he had- I would- I will-” he answers, his voice hoarse from screaming. He comes forward, and he puts his arms around Castiel, and Castiel mimics the gesture.

Castiel holds him tight.

“I think he bruised a rib,” Sam says. “And his hands should be checked out, too.”

Castiel looks up, at Sam.

Benny gestures toward the door. “I’ll call Anna,” he sighs.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Ellen and Anna both come, with their medical gear in tow. They keep dark, grim faces as they enter. They don’t ask questions, and they don’t say much beyond brief jargon shot back and forth- the names of medications and bones.

Anna presses against Dean’s side, and he hisses, sharply, and Castiel feels his blood go faster, his rage startlingly return. Burning. Anxious.

Anna peels back his shirt, and a bruise is spreading over his ribs and side. Anna frowns a little deeper and she says, “I’m going to feel along here, need some pressure.”

Dean screams.

“Okay, super,” Anna says, “we need to get him to a hospital; have Bobby call Medevac.”

Castiel sees the blood drain from Sam’s face suddenly. Dean looks panicked- he looks terrified.

“It’s probably nothing,” she says. “But if you’re that sensitive and you’ve got a fever and I’m not sure if it’s-” she gestures to the air- “or if it’s shock and we don’t have the ability to tell here.” She levels a steady gaze at Dean and she says, gently, “Dean, it might be nothing, but I’m not going to risk you dying.”

“Don’t make me go alone,” he says. “Please.”

“I’ll come with you,” she says. “Sam will come with Gabriel.”

Dean’s eyes turn to Castiel.

“No,” Anna says, “he has to attend to the pack.”

“Anna,” Castiel says, “I have to-”

“They aren’t going to like this and they’re not going to like it more if you’re not here,” she interrupts.

“Goddamnit, Anna, he is my mate!” Castiel shouts into the space.

Ellen takes his arm and pulls him out of the room.

She pulls him into a chair out by the desk, and she looks at him and she says, “You aren’t doing this here or now. You are not. You have responsibilities and that boy will have family there with him.”

“He needs me!” Castiel growls.

“Your pack needs you! Your pack needs a leader! And if you don’t lead them, you will have a pack no longer!” She answers. “They didn’t forget about the big house out there and they didn’t forget about the city and they didn’t forget about you.” She grits her teeth for a moment. “Dean needs to go to the hospital. Anna and Gabriel and Sam will be going with him. You will stay here, and you will have a pack meeting, and you will handle this. And then, then you will talk to him about this ‘mate’ shit.”

Castiel bites his lip, hard. He stands him and he rests his fist against the wall.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

“Damn straight,” Ellen answers. “Medevac is gonna be here soon. Go tell the boy you love him. You’ve both got a shit night ahead of you.”

Castiel walks back down the hallway, where Dean is laying on the floor. Anna has her fingers on his pulse. Dean has his eyes closed, the look on his face like panic is coming and he can barely keep it off.

“Dean,” he murmurs, kneeling down next to him. “I cannot go with you now, but I will be there tomorrow, if you are there that long. I have to- I have to-”

Dean grits his teeth. “I know,” he says.

“Dean-”

Dean opens his eyes. He looks tired. He looks pale. His black eye makes Castiel ache.

“ _I know,_ ” he says, softly.

Castiel realizes, suddenly, that it’s an I love you.

Son of a bitch has Han Solo’d him.

Castiel leans down and kisses him, softly.

He’s got a pack meeting he has to run.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

The hall is not large, but the size of it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it exists, and that it is official, and that everyone knows what the open doors mean. What it all means.

Castiel sits at the front of the hall. He sits on the top of the table, legs crossed and shoes off. He’s taller, he’s on the level above.

And slowly, the town- the pack- files in.

Castiel sits and he watches.

Word spreads. Sweeps through. Small towns, it’s like this.

Ellen shuts the door.

“Hello,” Castiel says. “I am sure all of you have heard of what happened this afternoon.”

No one says anything, and no one stands. It is like shame.

“I understand now, that I am late in discussing this with all of you,” he says. “I can recognize this. This is my mistake.” He pauses for a long moment. “Dean is a member of the pack. Dean was found in the cold, and I took him in. This is how it is.”

Like on cue, Zachariah rises sharply and shouts, “You prioritized that whore over my son, a third generation alpha over that omega-”

“I am the alpha of this pack,” Castiel says. He does not raise his voice.

“You prioritized that-”

“I am the alpha, unchallenged, sixth of my blood and first of my name,” Castiel says, loudly. “Your son attacked a pack member-”

“He is unbaptized and unmated and unregistered!” Zachariah cries.

Castiel remains seated, and he does not raise his voice. He does not need to. He is power. He is authority.

“He is pack,” he says. “And he is not unmated.”

The silence is deafening.

He sees Zachariah’s face change from furious to disgusted to angry again.

He gets up, and he leaves the meeting.

Castiel watches him go.

“Anthony Sandover is no longer a part of this pack, and by old laws, Zachariah Sandover has rescinded his own place here as well. If his properties are not sold in the next year, ownership will turn over to the pack collective and they will be distributed thusly,” Castiel says. “Are we all well?”


	12. Chapter 12

Anna holds his hand in the helicopter. She talks quickly with the the EMTS, she tries to explain what’s going on even though he’s having trouble focusing on what’s happening. He’s trying to stay calm, he’s trying not to panic.

He can’t help but think about how this would be so much easier if Castiel were here with him. He understands...he gets that Castiel has responsibilities and duties, that Castiel is important, but god, Dean’s scared. Dean’s so scared.

His body aches and he feels nauseous and feverish and wrong and bad.

But he also holds that word close to himself, a treasure, a secret.

 _He’s my mate_.

He tries to focus on that instead of the low anxiousness that maybe his liver is failing, that he’s going into shock, that he’s suffering from internal bleeding, that his ribs are broken.

He focuses on this admission- _He’s my mate_ \- cried out suddenly.

There have been a few murmurs before, but Dean’s never been quite lucid for them. He can half remember them, things happening in heats Castiel’s nose leaning sleepily against his neck and clavicle and his murmurs absent and tired. Something about the hormone in Dean’s suppressant, it makes both him and Castiel completely exhausted, and that makes things slip through.

It’s not that the touching hasn’t been welcome or real, it’s that there hasn’t been any...any sex, and Castiel is still- he still-

_He’s my mate._

It gives Dean a strange kind of warmth, all over himself, to think that Castiel-

_He’s my mate._

Anna’s holding his hand and the oxygen mask is fitted over his nose and mouth.

Anna checks her pager suddenly, and then she leans forward and says something, barely intelligible. Sam and Gabriel- -way.

“I’m not a hole,” Dean responds.

Anna frowns and gestures, loosely, to her ear. Can’t hear you.

“I’m not a hole,” Dean repeats. He’s not saying it to her. Not really, she doesn’t need to hear it. “I’m not a hole. I’m Dean. I’m more. I’m Dean.”

Dean hopes, quite a lot, that he’s not going to die.

Because he’s alive. God, he’s _alive_. He’s alive and he’s twenty and he wants to be here. He wants to weave, he wants to tie knots, he wants to marry Castiel and be close to him, be entangled with him forever. He wants to have kids.

The helicopter lands.

Dean holds Anna’s hand.

Dean wants to live.

 

 


End file.
